S.C. governor mum on plans, affair as tenure ends

By -
Associated Press -
Monday, December 27, 2010

BEAUFORT, S.C. (AP) — Things are looking up for Gov. MarkSanford as he prepares to leave office on his own terms more than a year after the international affair that derailed his once-promising political career.

He will be replaced by his chosen successor. “Tea party” supporters across the country have taken up his messages about fiscal responsibility. Friends say his midlife crisis is over.

Still, the two-term governor said he’s not sure what’s next and talked vaguely about writing a book or going back into business.

“It’s an interesting spot to be at, because my nature is always to have a next plan, but on this one I don’t,” said Mr. Sanford, a 50-year-old developer-turned-congressman. All he’ll say for now is that he plans to take his son’s green pickup truck and head toward home on the state’s southern coast, though he’s not sure exactly where he’ll live.

“I’m driving east on 26, and beyond that, it’s a new adventure, and we’ll figure out the next chapter of life,” he said.

The previous chapters include one of the decade’s most-watched political implosions.

He disappeared from the state for five days in June 2009 and told his staff he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, but he was really in Argentina visiting his mistress. He returned and held a press conference at which he confessed, “I have been unfaithful to my wife.”

In lengthy interviews with the Associated Press, Mr. Sanford declared his lover his soul mate.

Weeks later, wife Jenny Sanford moved out of the governor’s mansion in Columbia with their four sons and into the family’s beachfront home near Charleston. The governor did not contest the divorce that followed. She wrote a tell-all memoir, “Staying True,” and launched a national book tour.

Meanwhile, Mr. Sanford resisted calls to resign, fought an impeachment push and endured a formal rebuke from lawmakers who said he embarrassed the state. He paid a $74,000 ethics fine after AP and other media investigations found improprieties in his flights on state and private aircraft and his campaign spending.

A new round of questions came this spring when Mr. Sanford met in Florida with his Argentine lover, Maria Belen Chapur. He later explained he was seeking to rekindle the romance.

“Time will tell,” he said in May. “I don’t know if it will or won’t.”

With the end of his term-limited tenure now in focus, Mr. Sanford won’t talk about Ms. Chapur.

“I think I have said more than I ever need to say about my personal life. And in fairness to the people I represent, I’m not talking about it anymore,” he said during a recent interview at the Statehouse. “I think anybody would observe the obvious, which is, you know, the events of 18 months ago were, you know, life-changing in nature at some level and more than humbling at a lot of different levels.”

Mr. Sanford hung on after the scandal broke at the urging of friends and allies, including wealthy lawyer and real estate developer John Rainey. He recruited Mr. Sanford to run for governor and laments his missed opportunities.